THE WATER SUPPLY OF SYDNEY. CXV., 
enormous cost of filtration works for the supply of pure 
water to populations exceeding } a million, and rapidly 
increasing, can supply an answer to that question. 
Replying to Professor IKernot, Mr. Keele said that the 
Professor is not in agreement with the President of the 
Water Board and his professional officers Messrs. Oliver 
and Ritchie, who had expressed themselves in no uncertain 
terms in their reports as published in the press of July 1st, 
on the present condition of the Melbourne Water Supply. 
On the one hand it is stated that °‘ there has been for the 
last half century, and is now, an abundant supply,”’ and on 
the other that ‘“‘there is a probability of the Yan Yean 
reservoir being reduced to such a dangerously low level 
that the supply for the following years may prove insuflici- 
ent for domestic and sanitary purposes’’; that ‘the records 
of the past point most unmistakeably to four successive 
years of average and low rainfall as now due before a 
return of high rainfall’’; and that “‘with the last resort 
and absolute necessity we are clearly face to face with, the 
time has arrived when the Acheron diversion should be 
carried out if we are to prevent disaster in Melbourne and 
metropolis. The remarkable and unexampled falling off 
in the streams supplying the Yan Yean for such a long 
period has reduced the stored water to adangerous point.”’ 
Now which of these statements are we to accept ? 
The Board’s responsible officers arrived at their con- 
clusions from an intimate knowledge of local conditions, 
and as Mr. Oliver remarks, “‘ their fears expressed are not 
based on mere conjecture, but on absolute results of intake 
and output.’’ I had no personal knowledge of the Melbourne 
water supply, or of its present condition, but arrived at my 
conclusions from a study of the rainfall and particularly of 
the residual mass curve as deduced therefrom, which Pro- 
fessor Kernot utterly condemns and rejects as a guide ‘‘to 
estimate the probable discharge of springs and streams.”’ 
